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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
The president says a big tax cut for the rich will create jobs for the hard-hit middle class. In this city of faded glory, few believe him.
Apr 30, 2003 | On a warm March afternoon just days before President Bush launched the invasion of Iraq, Robert Wood stood outside an unemployment office in Peoria, Ill., and fought a quiet war of his own.
For the last two years, Wood has been a discouraged job seeker. Until this winter he'd pieced together what he calls a "decent living," doing all sorts of odd jobs -- plumbing, roofing, drywalling. He was so proud of his ingenuity, he painted his name and home phone number on the doors of his rusty red Chevy pickup.
But through the winter and into early spring, the 41-year-old general contractor has been idle. If the economy seems to be in recession nationwide, its condition is more dire here in this city that voted for George W. Bush by a narrow margin in 2000. Various economic indicators prove the point, but Wood has a simple measure:
"There are no jobs," he complains.
Once there were plenty of jobs in Peoria. An industrial giant in the heart of the nation's farm belt, the city of 113,000 is situated on the Illinois River, linking Chicago to the Mississippi River. The location made it a perfect spot for heavy-machine manufacturers, distillers and stockyards. It grew from a French frontier settlement to the nation's "whiskey capital," when area companies paid more liquor taxes than in any other place in the country. Today Peoria is largely known as the headquarters of Caterpillar, the world's leading manufacturer of mining and earthmoving equipment.
But starting in the early 1980s, Peoria began to hemorrhage jobs. Factories reduced their operations or shut down altogether. Residents fled to the suburbs or to the Sun Belt. Empty storefronts line the streets of downtown, and many houses near the central city have been boarded up and abandoned. For years, methamphetamine labs were a problem that afflicted other areas, but in recent months a handful have been busted here.
When hard times hit, Peoria bleeds a bit more than the rest of the country. While the U.S. unemployment rate hit 5.8 percent in March, it was 6.9 percent here. In the last few years, the annual number of layoffs in the Peoria region has increased fourfold. In late March, two soldiers from a Peoria-based National Guard unit drowned while swimming across a canal during a reconnaissance mission in southern Iraq. Five days later, two more local guardsmen were gunned down by men on motorcycles in southern Afghanistan, about 70 miles west of Kandahar. Like most other traditional Midwesterners, Peorians overwhelmingly support the troops overseas, but skepticism about the war in Iraq has been widespread.
Peorians used to be cited as exemplars of the American disposition. The question "Will it play in Peoria?" originated during the days of vaudeville, when it was believed a show would succeed anywhere if it did well before a crowd of no-nonsense central Illinoisans. In the 1970s, White House aide John Ehrlichman used "Will it play in Peoria?" as a litmus test in setting national policies for the administration of Richard Nixon. But Nixon himself didn't care much for domestic issues; according to Richard Reeves' "President Nixon: Alone in the White House," the president belittled domestic policy as "building outhouses in Peoria."
Peorians in many ways remain an embodiment of the American heartland. It is a small city heavily influenced by the farm economy and by traditional values; its suburbs are relatively strong, and they're growing. But in every factory and on every street, globalization has fundamentally changed economic opportunities and risks, often for the worse. People are no longer as self-assured as they once were -- an uneasiness is pervasive. To Wood and many like him, the future looks bleak. And though Bush enjoys a high approval rating, both in Peoria and nationally, many here believe he needs to turn his attention to the economy if he doesn't want to meet the same one-term fate as his father.
In a series of interviews conducted here over the past two months, few Peorians said they believed Bush's $550 billion tax cut will fix what's wrong. Bush may be calling the tax cut a jobs program or an economic stimulus package, but many think it's tailored to the wealthy.
As the nation struggles to climb out of its economic doldrums, Peoria reflects a larger, decades-long trend bearing down on the American working class: With high-paying jobs lost to Mexico and other countries, secure positions at good wages are tough to find. If you're unlucky enough to lose your job, chances are your new employer will pay you much less than you earned before. And if you're not careful, you may wind up on a very slippery slope.
Take, for instance, Robert Wood and his wife, Lori. With their bills mounting, Robert said, it seemed they were arguing about everything -- who last did the dishes and where he left his boots after entering the house. On several occasions, Lori had even talked about a trial separation. After more than 10 years of marriage, she wanted to move the kids to her mother's in Florida, where she figured it would be easier to return to work.
When questioned on Elm Street, four blocks south of downtown Peoria, Robert Wood appeared understandably preoccupied. He related his story with an expression of disbelief -- circumstances were increasingly beyond his control. He needed a job, any job -- fast.
"I'm not afraid of hard work," he said, sounding a little frightened. "I'll lay cement, pick up trash, you name it."
The afternoon ended disappointingly. Classified as self-employed, Wood wasn't eligible for unemployment compensation. For the foreseeable future, there would be no money coming into his home.
Following a few minutes of conversation, he looked away and started to think out loud, listing everything he could possibly sell: his tools, his truck, exercise equipment he'd never used. He could apply for a state job-placement program, and he was told where to go for food stamps. He'd never been this desperate.
"I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "All I'm asking for is a job. But no one's hiring -- everyone's worried."
